Charles Wentworth Dilke

The Source and Remedy of the National Difficulties, Deduced
from Principles of Political Economy, in a Letter to Lord John Russell

Written:
February 1821First Published: 1821Source:This pamphlet was published
anonymously in 1821. Authorship was attributed to Dilke by his grandson
who found an annotated copy of the pamphlet acknowledging authorship
amongst his granfather's papers.Translated:UnknownTranscription/Markup:
Steve PalmerProofread:UnknownCopyleft: This
document is in the public domain

'This scarcely known
pamphlet (about 40
pages) ... contains an important advance on Ricardo. It bluntly
describes surplus-value—or “profit”, as
Ricardo calls it (often also
“surplus produce”), or
“interest”, as the author of the pamphlet terms
it—as “surplus labour”, the labour which
the worker performs gratis,
the labour he performs over and above the quantity of labour by which
the value of his labour-power is replaced, i.e., by which he produces
an equivalent for his wages. Important as it was to reduce value to
labour, it was equally important [to present] surplus-value, which
manifests itself in surplus product, as surplus labour. This was in
fact already stated by Adam Smith and constitutes one of the main
elements in Ricardo’s argumentation. But nowhere did he
clearly express
it and record it in an absolute form.
Whereas the only concern of Ricardo and others is to understand the
conditions of capitalist production, and to assert them as the absolute
forms of production, the pamphlet and the other works of this kind ...
seize on the mysteries of capitalist production which have been brought
to light in order to combat the latter from the standpoint of the
industrial proletariat.'

Marx Theories of Surplus-Value,
MECW, 32, p 374

"The leanness that affects us, the objects of
our misery, is an inventory to particularize their abundance." -
SHAKSPEARE.

"How to solder, how to stop a leak - that now is
the deep design of a politician." - MILTON.

London, February, 1821. MY LORD,

I ADDRESS your Lordship because I believe you to be sincere
and zealous in your public opinions and conduct; and because I know you
to be a young man, and therefore less likely to have your understanding
incrusted by established and received theories.

I was confirmed in this intention by an Essay, in a work
generally attributed to your Lordship, wherein you acknowledge the
little satisfaction you have hitherto received from the contradictory
opinions of writers on this subject. They are indeed, my Lord,
contradictory, not only the one to the other, but to our best feelings
and plainest sense. From all the works I have read on the subject, the
richest nations in the world are those where the greatest revenue is or
can be raised; as if the power of compelling or inducing men to labour
twice as much at the mills of Gaza for the enjoyment of the
Philistines, were proof of any thing but a tyranny or an ignorance
twice as powerful.

How far my own opinions will be conclusive with your
Lordship's, I dare not hazard a conjecture; but as many of them are
uncommon, they may, as Hume says, "repay some cost to understand them".
But, my Lord, if they are true, they have most
important consequences; I therefore earnestly intreat you not
to reject them without a patient and attentive examination.

Here then, my Lord, after having, for the interest of our
suffering country, again respectfully solicited your attention
throughout the progress of this inquiry, I leave off personally
addressing you.

In the consideration of this important question, we must
advert to and reason from principles; I shall proceed therefore
immediately to lay down such as are of immediate consequence to the
argument, and such as must, I presume, if the wording be not cavilled
at, be universally admitted as true.

First then, I hold, or rather I presume it is universally
held, that

LABOUR IS THE SOURCE OF ALL WEALTH AND REVENUE. It signifies
not how our

revenue may come to us, whether as interest of money--rent of
houses, lands, mines, quarries--pensions--profits of
trade--salary--tithes:-- come what way it will, through what channel it
will, it must be originally derived from labour--either our own labour,
or the labour of others.

If then, this first principle be admitted, it follows
conclusively that THE

WEALTH OF A NATION, as of an individual, CONSISTS IN ITS
RESERVED LABOUR:

the stores either of money, machinery, manufactures, or
produce, &c. &c. that it may possess, being the
evidences and representatives of that reserved labour.

It is not my intention to clog this inquiry with an eternal
reference to the opinions of other men--I shall hereafter neither
controvert nor advert to them; but it will be but honest to the
uninitiated here to admit, that even this simple proposition has been
objected to, and to state the nature of the objection, that he may be
satisfied an endeavour to establish every principle against all
possible objection, would require a folio rather than a letter. Thus it
has been held by some "learned Thebans " to be erroneous, because we
omit the powerful agency of nature: now this is strictly true; but then
other and more "learned Thebans"; come upon us with a distinction
between "value in use " and "value in exchange," and show it is only
true of "value in use; " this is still more accurate: but then it needs
two more chapters, and, I ask, might not one chapter say to the others
"we three are sophisticated?" Does not a plain man find his common
interpretation of the language was perfectly correct?

At the same time that I shall be scrupulously studious of
brevity, to be clear and intelligible must be the first consideration;
therefore I shall myself refine a little even upon this second
principle, and, for the

avoiding future explanation, add, that the WEALTH OF A NATION
CONSISTS IN ITS RESERVED SURPLUS LABOUR, by which I mean the reserved
labour beyond

its usual and necessary consumption; for without this
distinction, which, though too indefinite and inaccurate, may serve my
purpose, the wealth of a nation would vary with the seasons; before
harvest and after harvest materially. Now, however, that I have been
stayed by this literal accuracy, I may add that when I shall hereafter
speak of the surplus labour of a man, I mean by
it, the representative of all the labour of the individual beyond what
is exclusively appropriated to the maintenance and enjoyment of himself
and family. But once for all, as I profess to neither to be learned nor
critical on this subject, I trust the reader will allow my language the
utmost latitude of meaning if by so doing it may include what is true,
or will limit and restrict any particular word or phrase, if in a
general or more extensive sense the opinion would be erroneous;--this
blundering attempt at definition has already made me despair of any
thing like accuracy.

The wealth of a nation having been now defined to be its
reserved

surplus labour, I shall add that RESERVED SURPLUS LABOUR IS
CAPITAL, and further, that reserved SURPLUS LABOUR OR CAPITAL HAS A
POWER OF REPRODUCTION, or of FACILITATING PRODUCE when
invested in machinery,

lands, agricultural improvements, &c.
&c.

These are some of the best principles with which to begin this
inquiry, because they are the least likely to be disputed; but there
are certain consequences I shall proceed to deduce from them, neither
so immediately apparent, nor so certain as to leave me the same
assurance of universal assent. The intent and object of all writers of
political economy has hitherto been, to suggest the best means of
increasing the

wealth or capital of a country; now NATURE, I say, HAS PUT
BOUNDS TO THE ACCUMULATION OF CAPITAL, and further, for this is the
great practical purpose of the argument, I hope to shew that THE
ACCUMULATION OF CAPITAL IS VERY LIMITED, if the happiness of
the whole, and not the luxuries of afew, is the
proper subject for national congratulation.

We will examine the question simply. Suppose the whole labour
of the country to raise just sufficient for the support of the whole
population; it is evident there is no surplus labour, consequently,
nothing that can be allowed to accumulate as capital.

Suppose the whole labour of the country to raise as much in one
year as would maintain it two years, it is
evident one year's consumption must perish, or for one year men
must cease from productive labour. But the possessors of the surplus
produce, or capital, will neither maintain the population the following
year in idleness, nor allow the produce to perish; they will employ
them upon something not directly and immediately productive, for
instance, in the erection of machinery, &c. &c.
&c. But the third year, the whole population may again return
to productive labour, and the machinery erected in the last year coming
now into operation, it is evident the produce of the whole will be
greater than the first year's produce, by the additional power of the
machinery, and consequently that the superabundant produce will be one
whole year's consumption, and the produce of the machinery in addition.
It will follow still more necessarily, therefore, either that this
surplus labour must perish, or be put to use as before; and this usance
again adds to the productive power of the labour of the society, and so
on progressively, till men must cease from
productive labour for a time, or the produce of their labour must
perish.

This is the palpable consequence in the simplest state of
society, and neither the detail of figures, the jargon of our political
economists, nor the complexity of existing institutions, can alter this
consequence, although the one may confuse us in discourse, and the
other abuse us in the endeavour; and, in proof, we will proceed to
trace the progress of the accumulation of capital in existing
societies, which will be found confirmatory of what I have stated.

The first step is, that the possessor of capital, never mind
how obtained nor how invested, whether in lands, houses, money, or
manufactures, engrosses so much of the labour of others for the use of
his capital, as they are able to benefit by its use, and this is what
is called interest of money, profits of trade, rent, &c. But as
all men that have ever felt the accumulative power of money have a
passion to accumulate it, the accumulation of capital would proceed,
and as capital has a reproductive power, produce would go on
increasing, until no man would avail himself of the capital of another,
and consequently till no man could live on his capital, because no man
would give, his labour for its use[1].
Here then the evil would have corrected itself, and the society would
be in the same situation as in the first year, with this difference
only, that its surplus produce must perish,
because there is no further means of investing it.

THE PROGRESS OF THIS INCREASING CAPITAL WOULD, in
establishedsocieties, BE MARKED BY
THE DECREASING INTEREST OF MONEY, or, which is the

same thing, the decreasing quantity of the labour of others
that would be given for its use; but so long as capital could command
interest at all, it would seem to follow, that the society cannot have
arrived at that maximum of wealth, or of productive power, when its
produce must be allowed to perish.

When, however, it shall have arrived at this maximum, it would
be ridiculous to suppose, that society would still continue to exert
its utmost productive power. The next consequence therefore would be,
that where men heretofore laboured twelve hours they would now labour
six, and this is national wealth, this is
national prosperity. After all their idle sophistry, there is, thank
God! no means of adding to the wealth of anation
but by adding to the facilities of living: so that wealth is liberty--
liberty to seek recreation--liberty to enjoy life--liberty to improve
the mind: it is disposable time, and nothing more. Whenever a society
shall have arrived at this point, whether the individuals that compose
it, shall, for these six hours, bask in the sun, or sleep in the shade,
or idle, or play, or invest their labour in things with which it
perishes, which last is a necessary consequence if they will labour at
all, ought to be in the election of every man
individually.

The decreased value of capital is however so certain a
consequence, that if we could ascertain the actual value of the surplus
produce of any society at any given time, if we could foresee the exact
progress of improvement and machinery in facilitating labour, or
multiplying its powers, and the necessary expenditure of human labour
in their improvement and erection, we could, allowing for the
progressive increase of society, by the common rule of proportion,
ascertain almost to an hour when capital would cease to be of value,
and when labour must abridge its hours of toil, or allow the surplus
produce to go to manure the earth, or bestow it on things with which it
perishes, thoughthis last alternative
being nothing to society, but an election of the individual preferring
labour and luxury to idleness, or intellectual enjoyment, should not
perhaps have been noticed here. But without this exact data
whence we could predict the year, the month, the hour, we have, in the
certainty that the produce of all productive labour exceeds the
consumption of the labourer, a knowledge and assurance that sooner or
later that time must arrive; and in the certainty that the surplus
produce of every productive labourer is two, ten, or twenty times more
than his consumption; a gratifying conviction that it can never be far
off.

To men accustomed only to the confusion and misrepresentation
of many writers on this subject, or to reason from what has been, to
what must, and what ought to be, I fear these consequences will appear
but a pleasant and idle speculation; they are however indisputably
true. Why then is it that no existing society, nor society that ever
had existence, has arrived at this point of time, considering that in
all times, and in all societies, excepting only the very barbarous, a
few years would naturally have led to it? How is it too, it might be
added, that not­withstanding the unbounded extent of our
capital, the
progressive improvement and wonderful perfection of our machinery, our
canals, roads, and of all other things that can either facilitate
labour, or increase its produce; our labourer, instead of having his
labours abridged, toils infinitely more, more hours, more laboriously,
than the first Celtic savage that crossed over from the Cimmerian
Chersonesus, and took possession of the desert island? It would indeed
require a melancholy retrospective inquiry to answer this question. If
we could call up the spirits of departed legislators, and of those men
in particular, who have been entrusted with power and authority for the
last hundred years, how many whom the ignorance of the multitude have
applauded, and interested men have united to commend and honour, must
answer to their own shame! I shall however resolve the question to the
best of my ability.

We have seen evidently enough the origin of, and progressive
increase of capital, its reproductive power, and the consequent rapid
advance of society to that real national prosperity, when men would no
more labour,

than sufficed

To recommend cool zephyr, and make ease

More easy, wholesome thirst and appetite

More grateful;

and our inquiry is now to ascertain why society never has
arrived at this enviable situation, this real national prosperity,
although so immediately within its grasp.

The first dead weight that hangs on to impede its progress, is
the possessor of capital, who, no longer uniting his labour
to the labour of the society, maintains himself on the interest, or the
surplus labour of others, that is paid him for the use of
his capital, whether in the nature of rent, or interest of money,
&c. &c. This I have shewn is an inconvenience that can
be of very short duration:--the increase and accumulation of
capital will still go on, till no man will give his labour for the use
of capital, and then the capitalist must to labour again.

Still the labourer has no real grievance to complain of; the
capital, on the interest of which the capitalist subsisted, we must
presume to be the representative of so much reserved surplus labour,
either of his own or his ancestors, and more productive in itself than
the labour of the individual could be, or no man could support him by a
sufficient payment for its use, and the increase of capital would
hourly and daily tend to the removal of the grievance altogether. But
it is here that power has ever interfered, and by
misdirecting the labour of one part, and destroying the labour of
another, no longer permits a real accumulation of surplus produce, nor
consequently such an increase of capital as shall reduce the value of
existing capital, or reduce the capitalist to the necessity of
labouring again.

In this it is assisted by human passions, human ignorance, by
armies, navies, wars, and wrongs of all sorts. Divested of all
technical intricacy and of those nice distinctions that make plain
things unintelligible, it is very easy to offer conclusive proof of
this. The productive power of the whole labour of society, it has
before been shown, is diminished by the whole order of capitalists
withdrawing themselves from labour:--it signifies not that the use of
their capital is more than equivalent to their individual labour; it
cannot be denied that if they continued to add their labour to the
productive power of their capital, the whole produce would be greater
than the produce of the capital only. But society not only
loses the whole productive power of the capitalists by their ceasing to
labour, but all that part of the produce of the labour of others, that
is necessarily consumed by the capitalist. Thus in a society
of one hundred, if the labour of one man produce sufficient for the
maintenance of two, the labour of all will be equal to the maintenance
of two hundred, or the surplus labour of the whole is equal to the
maintenance of one hundred more than the society: but if only fifty
cease to labour, the produce of the labour of the society will be
exactly equal to its consumption-not an ounce of surplus produce will
exist-and it cannot be too strongly impressed on the mind that all unproductive
classes have always a two-fold operation, not only ceasing to produce
themselves, but actively destroying the produce of the labour of others.

It will be immediately apparent, that all soldiers, sailors,
parsons, lawyers, counsellors, judges, and innumerable other persons,
must be included among the capitalists, among those that are not only
unproductive, but that do actively destroy the labour of the productive
classes. No man, I presume, will be so foolish as to imagine I mean by
this to censure these persons or to deny their utility:-their use
and necessity is not connected with the present inquiry:-I have only to
offer proof, as I have done, that they necessarily destroy the produce
of the labour of a society, and consequently prevent or delay the
further increase of capital. This would be the operation of these
persons in every state of society, even in the most simple, where
sufficient for his maintenance was sufficient for the man, and where
the individuals of these classes exacted no more than sufficient for
their individual maintenance: but we know and feel, that with us these,
and many other classes, exact a great deal more; some sufficient for
their own maintenance and five thousand other persons, some of five
hundred, some of fifty, some of five. Now this surplus exaction, if I
may be allowed the phrase, has exactly the same operation with the
first exaction, that is, in the last class, it not only takes five men
from the productive labourers, and so far reduces the wonted produce of
the whole, but these five act as the first acted; the moment they
ceased to produce themselves, they began to destroy the produce of the
labour of the remainder.

As this evident consequence has, however, been a good deal
disputed when the five men happen not to be the personal and household
servants, but the coachmaker, the silversmith, or some such trader,
employed by the landholder, the fund-holder, the parson, the placeman,
or the capitalist; as it is the channel of the "refreshing dew" of some
writers, and as many have talked of the advantages of luxury, a word or
two more in explanation may not be wasted. We will presume that the
fund for the maintenance of these five persons, is the interest of the
capital of A: now it is the same in operation, whether A. maintains
five men wholly, or ten men half; whether he engrosses the fourth of
the labour of twenty, and contributes one fourth to the subsistence of
each, or takes a sixth from the labour of thirty, and thus changes his
labourers every day. If he prefer the latter, he will have five men's
labour on Monday, and these five he will maintain on Monday, and no
longer; the effect to society is the same; and this difference, and no
other, is there between the personal servant and the coachmaker and the
silversmith. What signifies it to society whether these five men be
employed in building him a chariot, in driving it, or riding behind it?
their labour is wholly unproductive, and they must be and are
maintained by him mediately, but immediately out of the produce of the
productive labourers. Now, if these men were employed in the creation
of fresh capital, or in productive labour, we have seen that the
consequences would be, of necessity, that in a short time, a very
trifling interest, or no interest at all, would be paid for the use
of capital, and the produce of labour would have so multiplied that men
must abridge that labour; and this is the first indication of a real national
wealth and prosperity.

To this withering influence of the capitalist, war is a
powerful co-operator; although after wading through the voluminous
financial pamphlets published within the last twenty years, the common
sense of common men is so bewildered, that they almost doubt if war was
not some curious invention of Mr. Pitt's, powerfully operative in
multiplying the produce of labour, and increasing the wealth of a
country. When the question is stated plainly it resolves itself.
Government acts exactly as a great capitalist acts.[2]If
government exacts in taxation sufficient for the maintenance of one
hundred men, it must, to get rid of this revenue, employ one hundred
men. I have shewn more than once, and the reader must never forget it,
although I shall not repeat the argument, that it is impossible
long to continue to employ them productively, and we know it does not.
If then, they be employed in making gunpowder, their labour is expended
and gone for ever with the first feu de joie; if
in ship­building, it perishes with the ships they build; and
the men
are not only withdrawn from productive labour, but must be fed and
clothed out of the produce of the labour of the remainder. If
government give a large part of its revenue to one as a judge, or to
another as an archbishop, the operation is necessarily the same; the
judge or the archbishop is then in the situation of the capitalist, and
all that has been said of the one is applicable to the other.

So long, however, as the unproductive classes shall be limited
to a few, or their exactions to a trifle, which is the same thing in
operation,

this inconvenience will not be felt; but the PROPORTION
BETWEEN PRODUCTIVE AND UNPRODUCTIVE classes (in which latter class, the
reader will

remember from the argument, (p.10.) all are to be included
whose labour is vested in things superfluous, enjoyed by capitalists
only), MUST EVER BEAR SOME PROPORTION: and in a society left at liberty
to accumulate capital we have seen they will; for as capital increases,
interest, or labour to be given for the use of capital, will, after a
short time, decrease.

So, too, in a society under ordinary circumstances, where the
legislature and the government indirectly operate to prevent the fresh
accumulation of capital, the proportion between the productive and the
unproductive, or rather the labour exacted from the productive by the
unproductive, will continue the same. This is
very evident; and I shall now proceed to prove that the whole of the
distress now experienced in this country, and in America too,
although that is beside the question, originates not so much in having
unnaturally increased the capital of the country, (for whether the
increase of capital be artificial or real, its operation will, if left
to itself, be the same,) but in having unnaturallyincreased the capital of the country, and avoided the natural
and

NECESSARY CONSEQUENCE OF AN INCREASED CAPITAL, THE DECREASING
INTEREST

TO BE PAID FOR THE USE OF CAPITAL; and consequently, but
directly as it

affects this question, in producing an unnatural disproportion
between the productive and unproductive classes, or to speak still more
correctly, enabling the unproductive classes to exact more
than their capital isworth from the productive
classes. When I shall have offered proofs of this, I shall
proceed to shew why the influence of this error was not felt during the
progress of the war, but at its termination.

First, then, to prove that the capital of this county was
unnaturally increased, we must ask ourselves what is capital? CAPITAL
IS SURPLUS LABOUR RESERVED. It exists in lands, houses, machinery,
ships, and a thousand other things, and a small, though powerfully
operative part, exists in gold and silver. It is with this last only we
are now immediately

concerned. GOLD AND SILVER then ARE THE REPRESENTATIVES OF
SURPLUS

LABOUR RESERVED: and neither gold nor silver mines are worked
in this

country, GOLD and SILVER are, with us, NOT ONLY THE
REPRESENTATIVES OF

SURPLUS LABOUR RESERVED, BUT OF SURPLUS LABOUR RESERVED AND
TRANSPORTED

TO OTHER COUNTRIES. Gold and silver too are the medium of
exchange, which has for ages been established in this country and
called money; all

then that I HAVE SAID OF GOLD AND SILVER IS TRUE OF MONEY,
namely, that it is

the representative of surplus labour reserved and transported
to other countries[3].

It will follow, therefore, that THE QUANTITY OF MONEY IN THIS
COUNTRY IS NECESSARILY LIMITED; and, without confusing the argument by
minute

explanation and reservations, I may add, that the importation
of gold and silver can only, in a series of years, be equal to the
surplus produce or manufactures, exported, over the produce or
manufactures imported. Thus, if we export to France a thousand pounds
worth of cotton stockings, or corn, and import from France nine hundred
pounds worth of wine or silks, the surplus to be paid in gold is one
hundred pounds. Thus, the amount of gold, and consequently of gold
currency in this country, is necessarily regulated, by the surplus
amount of our exports over our imports, and limited by the quantity of
gold in other countries; for gold in other countries will rise in
value proportionate to its scarcity, and decrease with us in proportion
to its abundance, until no more can be had in exchange for our goods.

All coin, then, is the representative of surplus labour. But,
for many years, a part of our circulating medium has been paper, and of
late years it has been wholly of paper, and paper not convertible into
gold. Let us imagine or trace the history of this, and we shall then
understand its nature. Suppose the reader to have requested me, for
greater security, to lock up 100 guineas in my iron chest, and as an
acknowledgment to him, and as an assurance to those to whom he wishes
it paid, that I will deliver it to them, I give him my note of hand to
that effect, promising to repay it on sight, or in a week, or in a
month. This paper is indirectly the representative of so much money,
capital, or surplus labour reserved: and the reasoning holds whether it
be 100 guineas or 1,000,000, and whether it be given by myself or the
Bank of England. But if, upon the strength of a good character and
large property, I give him such a bill, without having the gold
actually locked up in my iron chest, it changes its
character entirely; it is no longer the representative of so much money
or of capital; and in proof, suppose that I have 20,000l.
in money, and that no such thing as credit or paper money was known,
and that A. B. and C. having each land worth
20,000l, come to me, each requesting a loan of one
half his property, for which each is willing to give me a
mortgage on the whole. Here is property enough,
but can I accommodate them? assuredly not! it is evidently impossible!
and why is it so? because the joint property of all four of us is 80,000l.
and not 90,000l. and there is no means
on earth of increasing the representative of our surplus labour
reserved, but by adding to our reserved surplus
labour. This reasoning, too, holds good whether A. B. and C.
make application to me or to a chartered body called the Bank of
England. But, that the question may be less involved, I shall, in the
progress of the argument, presume application is made to the bank.
Well, in time credit becomes known: the property and character of the
bank are known: bills in some cases answer the purposes of exchange
better than money: all persons are willing to take the promissory notes
of the bank, and then A. B. and C. renew their application. The
difficulty is now at an end; the bank give their promissory notes and
receive the mortgages; but notwithstanding this, notwithstanding that
these promissory notes answer all the purposes of money, 20,000l.
only represent surplus labour reserved, and the other ten represent
nothing; and in proof, we will imagine the holders of these promissory
notes claiming the fulfilment of the promise, and demanding the 30,000l.
of the bank. What must follow? why, with the 20,000l.
that it has in its iron chest it discharges two-thirds, and
transfers one half the property of A. B. or C. to the holder of the
remainder. It follows of necessity. This 10,000l.
was a fictitious capital. But if, after this issue of paper, the bank
be protected against the holders of these promissory notes, this 10,000l.
will remain an unnatural and permanent addition to the capital of the
country; and as nothing here is imaginary, as the bank really was so
protected in 1797, I have proved what was intended, that the capital of
this country was unnaturally increased: for I presume it is needless to
offer proof that the bank had not 30,000,000l. of
gold in its coffers, which was the amount of its issues in 181 . In
fact, whence could it derive its profits if it were so?

No man, I conceive, will imagine from this reasoning, that I
am so mad as to be arguing against the possible advantage of credit. I
am now stating a fact, and nothing more: the question of policy will
remain to be discussed. As, however, important consequences will be
deduced from what is here said, I wish the reader to satisfy himself
that what is said is fact, and leave the consequences to hereafter.
What I say is this-that all

BANK OF ENGLAND NOTES-COUNTRY BANK NOTES-PRIVATE BILLS OF
ACCEPTANCE, AND IN SHORT ALL THINGS THAT REPRESENT MONEY AND ARE
CIRCULATED ON CREDIT, EXCEEDING THE ACTUAL AMOUNT OF MONEY WITHDRAWN IN
CONSEQUENCE FROM CIRCULATION, BUT ACTUALLY IN POSSESSION, WHATEVER GOOD
THEY MAY BE OF, NEITHER REPRESENT MONEY, NOR CAPITAL, NOR SURPLUS
LABOUR RESERVED, WHICH MONEY AND CAPITAL DO REPRESENT.

To proceed then: I have before shewn (p.5.) that the necessary
consequence of an increased capital is the decreased value of capital;
but its decreasing value is not in equal and proper proportion to its
increasing amount, because other and extrinsic circumstances tend to
counteract this natural consequence. The division of labour, and the
increase of trade, and of all purchases and exchange, where money is
used, require an increased circulating medium, and tend therefore to
uphold the value of money, which is that medium. Now the reader will
observe, that whether this circulating medium, or floating capital, be
in gold or in paper passing on credit, its natural operation is the
same, and with its increase in amount, it would naturally decrease in
value. Why it did not is for after proof.

Another thing that was proved, (p. 5.) is, that all capital
tends to produce capital, or to increase surplus produce, which gives
the idea clearer than the word capital. An increase of trade therefore,
as it is the consequence of increased capital, real or fictitious,
vested in trade, does tend to further increase capital: But as we have
just shewn that increased trade requires an increase of money, where
money is the circulating medium; and as it was shewn (p. 13.) that
an increase of money is very slow and not always possible, it will
follow that trade must be cramped and limited, where no other medium of
exchange is known, by the

amount of gold in circulation: so that THE INCREASE OF GOLD
COIN, or

floating capital, IS NOT ONLY CHECKED AND CONTROLLED BY OUR
TRADE, BUT DOES CHECK AND CONTROL TRADE ITSELF. This is a natural
check therefore to

the increase of trade. This natural check to the increase of
trade is however avoided the moment credit is established: still,
however, credit itself has a natural check; for if its representative
promissory notes become circulated to excess, which is felt in the
decreased value of the circulating medium, the holders will demand gold
for them, until enough is destroyed, for it is destroyed
when returned to the issuer, to keep up the value of the
remainder. This natural check to credit is itself lost, when promissory
notes are by law substituted for money; and not to repeat proof, I
refer the reader to those offered (p. 14.)

By the establishment then of an inconvertible paper, the
natural check on the increase of produce is avoided[4].
Yet, a check and control on the increase of produce is a very necessary
thing for even the demand of foreign countries is limited. If the whole
world would agree to barter only with this country, I say, this country
could not barter with the whole world, because our manufactures are the
produce of human labour, however assisted, and vested in things with
which it perishes; and though our labouring, population should be
reduced to feed on thistles, their surplus labour could never equal the
surplus labour of the whole world. So much for the ridiculous and
impossible supposition of engrossing the whole trade of the world, with
which our merchants sometimes indulge us. But overlooking this for
a moment, foreign trade, I say, has a much earlier check than the
sufferings of our own population. The demand of other countries is
limited, not only by our power to produce, but by
their power to produce, for do what you will, in a
series of years the whole world can take little more of us,
than wetake of the world, (see p.
13.) so that all your foreign trade, of which there is so much talking,
never did, never could, nor ever can, add one shilling, or one doit to
the wealth of the country, as for every bale of silk, chest of tea,
pipe of wine that ever was imported, something of equal value was
exported; and even the profits made by our merchants in their foreign
trade are paid by the consumer of the return goods here.

The real nature of our foreign trade is very little understood
:-lf the writers on the subject understand it themselves, they "palter
with us" here, even more than is their custom. In this country, where
agricultural and all other necessaries are produced in sufficient
quantity; foreigntrade is mere barter
and exchange for the convenience and enjoymentof
the capitalist: he has not a hundred bodies, nor a hundred
legs: he cannot consume, in cloth and cotton stockings, all the cloth
and cotton stockings that are manufactured; therefore they are
exchanged for wines and silks; but those wines and silks represent the
surplus labour of our own population, as much as
the cloths and cottons, and in this way the destructive power of the
capitalist is increased beyond all bounds:-by foreign trade the
capitalists contrive to outwit nature, who had put a thousand natural
limits to their exactions, and to their wishes to exact; there is no
limit now, either to their power, or their desires, but impossibility.

This is the direct and palpable consequence of our commerce,
and the suffering of our labouring population is evidence of its truth.
But our commerce has had a moral consequence, as well as a physical,
and in this way it was the bitterest curse that ever afflicted
humanity; and of this the nation itself will testify to all posterity.
Oh, if I dared venture to anticipate the last paragraph of the
historian that generations hence shall trace the character of this age
and country, it should run thus.-"The increase of trade and commerce
opened a boundless extent to luxury:- the splendour of luxurious
enjoyment in a few excited a worthless, and debasing, and selfish
emulation in all:-The attainment of wealth became the ultimate purpose
of life:-the selfishness of nature was pampered up by trickery and
art:-pride and ambition were made subservient to this vicious
purpose:-their appetite was corrupted in their infancy, that it might
leave its natural and wholesome nutriment, to feed on the garbage of
Change Alley:-instead of the quiet, the enjoyment, the happiness,
and the moral energy of the people, they read in their horn-book of
nothing but the wealth, the commerce, the manufactures, the revenue,
and the pecuniary resources of the country; the extent of its navy and
the muster-roll of its hireling army:-in honour of this beastly Belial
they made a sacrifice of the high energies of their nature:-they hailed
his progress with hosannahs, though on his right hand sat Despotism,
and on his left Misery:- they made a welcome sacrifice to him of their
virtues and their liberties:-to satisfy his cravings they forewent
their natural desires:-honour and truth were offered up on his
altars:-and the consummation of their hopes was characterised by misery
and ignorance; the dissolution of all social virtue and common sympathy
among individuals; and by a disunited, feeble, despotic, and despised
government!

But foreign trade, says a living writer, "augments the
materials on which labour may be employed," and Hume, speaking of the
advantage of a limited debt, says, "it quickens the labour of the
common people." These advantages, common to both trade and debt, are
the same, I conceive, or at least the latter advantage is the more
intelligible: but let me ask whether these writers would have preferred
digging six days a week, at twelve hours a day, for a whole life, or
six hours a day for three days a week from twenty to fifty. Is labour,
that is, toiling, sweating, digging, delving, hedging, ditching,
draining, the only enjoyment of life? or does your spinning-jenny
"discourse" such "excellent music" that its eternal hum is the only
thing that makes life tolerable? This compelling or inducing people to
toil on eternally, seems a very pleasant speculation, and a wonderful
progress in political economy, according to these men, but I never
heard of one of them but had a relish for quiet and enjoyment himself.
Should we have heard. so much of its advantages, had it been then for
the first time discovered, and had the consequences of the discovery
been to have driven Hume, and every man then existing, to work winter
and summer, hail or rain, twelve hours a day, to cultivate the bleak
barren surface of Hind Head or Salisbury plain? Yet it would surely be
better to "quicken the labour" of the whole, than of a part.

I am afraid these observations on foreign trade have drawn me
aside from my argument, and perhaps I have somewhat anticipated it. But
to resume; I may presume that I have offered proof sufficient (p. 14
and 15) that the capital of this country was unnaturally raised, which
the reader will remember was what I proposed to demonstrate. We did so
by establishing an inconvertible paper money, which enabled us to add
to the floating capital of the country a fictitious capital that did
not, as all capital ought to do, represent surplus produce reserved.
But this was only one of the means; a powerful one it is true, and
without which, I believe, enough has been said to satisfy the reader,
we could not have succeeded in the other; but it was one only.
Prohibitory corn laws are another. A man will give no more for a thing
to A than to B; at whatever price, therefore, the people of this
country could import corn, our farmers must of necessity sell their
corn at that price, or they cannot sell it at all. The people know
nothing, care nothing, about its relative cost; their market is the
cheapest market: this admits of no argument. Well then, at whatever
price the farmer in this country sells his wheat, in proportion to that
price he pays a rental, and this rental is the test of the value of the
land, and the whole rental of the country is the test of the value of
the whole land of the country, or of the capital of the country vested
in lands. If now, by some legislative enactment, by the decreased value
of money, or by any other regulating circumstances, the price of
agricultural produce shall be so raised as to enable the landholders to
double their rental, and the interest of money continue the
same after asbefore, the whole
capital of the country vested in lands is doubled in amount. We all
know that the legislature may so regulate the enactment that this
increased rental may come into the hand of government but it may
not do so: we all know that the regulating circumstances
increasing the value of agricultural produce, may be so counteracted by
others, that the landholder shall not receive advantage; but it may
not :-we have nothing to do with that here:
the proposition, as I have stated, is true beyond all cavilling.

Well then, either the enactments of the legislature, or the
decreased value of money, or some influential circumstances, or the
conjoint operation of these has, within the last thirty years, so
increased the value of agricultural produce, that the landholders have
been enabled, at least, to double their rental[5].
It is difficult to offer conclusive proof of this, as metaphysicians
find it difficult to offer proof that there is such a thing as figure,
colour, or matter, of which, however, no reasonable man entertains a
doubt: instances might be excepted against, as proof only in those
instances: nothing therefore could satisfy a querulous man but the
rent-roll of every man's estate in the kingdom, as it was in 1785 and
in 1815: we must be content, therefore, to take the notoriety of the
fact for proof. I shall hereafter be enabled to show the reasonable
probability of it, but for the certainty, every man must take the
evidence within his reach, which I am quite sure will support the
assertion. That the legal interest of money is
the same now as in 1785, is equally notorious: it follows therefore
conclusively, that since the year 1785, the whole rental of the kingdom
has been doubled; and as the interest of money has continued the same,
that the whole capital vested in lands has been doubled: and let any
man ask himself if there be any estate within his knowledge worth 500l.
or 50,000l. in 1785, that is not now worth 1000l.
or 100,000l., the estate remaining entire, and
wheat selling at eighty shillings.

I have already proved that the capital of the country was
unnaturally raised: it remains now to shew that having so raised the
capital of the country, we avoided the natural and necessary
consequence of an increased capital, its decreasing value:
the very progress of the argument, in proof that we have done so, will
shew the consequences of so doing, and those natural consequences will
be explanatory of the existing distress. The argument therefore is no
longer confined to general reasoning, but has increased importance in
its direct practical ap­plication.

That I may not be repeating the general reasonings heretofore
urged, I shall throughout suppose it to be present to the reader, and
content myself with a bare reference to the preceding page in which it
may be referred to.

The natural consequence of an increased
capital I have shewn to be its decreased value,[6](p.
6 and 7.) but this is not only a natural but a necessary
consequence. It is necessary, because if it were possible tocontinue to increase capital and keep up the value
of capital, which isproved by the
interest of money continuing the same, the interest to be
paid for capital would soon exceed the whole produce of
labour. Of the truth of this proof has been offered. It is a
principle admitted universally, that men being once sensible of the
accumulative power of capital, have a passion to accumulate it;-the
conduct of a few spendthrifts in no way affecting the principle as of
mankind generally, as of a whole society. It has been shewn (p. 5) that
capital tends in more than arithmetical progression to increase
capital. It is admitted that the interest paid to the capitalists,
whether in the nature of rents, interests of money, or profits of
trade, is paid out of the labour of others. If
then capital go on accumulating, as it would naturally do, the labour
to be given for the use of capital must go on increasing, interest paid
for capital continuing the same, till all the labour of all the
labourers of the society is engrossed by the capitalist. This
consequence is logically correct. There is, however, one objection, and
only one objection to it, that it is a consequence impossible
to happen; for whatever may be due to
the capitalist, he can only receive the surplus
labour of the labourer; for the labourer mustlive;
he must satisfy the cravings of nature before he satisfies the cravings
of the capitalist. But the reader will observe that the objection is
only untrue in this extreme case. It is perfectly
and entirely true, that if capital does not decrease in value as it
increases in amount, the capitalists will exact from the labourers the
produce of every hour's labour beyond what it is possible
for the labourer to subsist on: and however horrid and disgusting it
may seem, the capitalist may eventually speculate on the food that
requires the least labour to produce it, and eventually say to the
labourer, "You sha'n't eat bread, because barley meal is cheaper; you
sha'n't eat meat, because it is possible to subsist on beet root and
potatoes." And to this point have we come! and by
this very progress have we arrived at it!

Well, but, it may be asked, how did we contrive to avoid what
you call the natural consequence of an increasing
capital, its decreasing value? I answer, by destroying
it. By destroying the capital, or the surplus produce that
would have become capital, had it been allowed to exist. It was made
ducks and drakes of in America-it was fired away in Egypt and at
Trafalgar-it was eaten by a hundred thousand men in the Peninsula-by
your army and navy for thirty years-you may inquire for it at Walcheren
or Waterloo, and hear of it in all quarters of the globe. Well then, it
may be said, if the capital were destroyed as it was created, how could
the capital increase? This would be a play upon words. Capital did not
increase actually, but if it had, it signifies
not to the labourer, who is concerned only with the interest
that is paid for its use; but it did increase nominally, and
in all its ill consequences, and in proof look to page 21 for the
increase of nominal capital vested in lands. There was no increase of
capital; but the interest that is paid for the
use of capital vested in lands is doubled in amount.
Again, the nominal capital might be thus increased. Suppose the reader
to borrow of me 100l. at legal interest, and the
day or the hour after the loan is completed, his house is burnt and the
100l. with it: the capital is gone, but he must
pay the interest as long as the world stands, until he repay the
principal. Now suppose that on the receipt of the 100l.
he bought a pleasure-boat, and in seven years his boat is rotten and
perished: the capital is gone, but the interest remains in perpetuity.
Just so it is with this country. We have borrowed in the last thirty
years eight hundred millions of money. This 800,000,000 is gone! but I
say if this 800,000,000 were now in existence, the country could no
more pay the interest of it at five per cent. than it can now; it might
somewhat better, but still it would be grievously severe: but then had
the 800,000,000 still been in existence, it would not
have had the interest to have paid: the evil would have corrected
itself: the produce of labour, with the addition of great
part of this capital in machinery and agriculture, would have been so
beyond your consumption, that, unless it is to be said that
all human improvements shall only benefit one portion, one division of
the people, unless it be said that the labourer shall still labour,
though it be changed from productive to unproductive, he shall still
labour, though he make nothing but gimcracks, and knick-knackery, and
fools' baubles it would have been so beyond your consumption, thatpossibly no such thing as interest to be paid for the use of
capital would have been known. But every shilling of your
capital, I say, was destroyed as it was created, and nothing remains
but the interest that is to be paid for it. In every sense however in
which capital is oppressive, this 800,000,000 has a real existence, and
is immortal.

I have just said that every shilling of the real
surplus labour of thecountry, was destroyed as
it was created. For the last thirty years I honestly
believe, that the exaction from labour has been at its maximum, or as
near it as it is well possible to arrive, nay, I believe, beyond it,
and that your increasing poor rates are evidences of this, nine tenths
of them being so much disgorged by the capitalist, being so much
exacted beyond what the labourer can bear.[7]I
know it may be urged against this, that taxation and rents, &c.
have gone on progressively increasing for the last thirty years, and
therefore, that such an assertion is ridiculous. Of course I do not
think so. It is difficult to say how much it is possible to exact from
the labourer, because I know not how much he can labour, nor how little
he can live on. "It is a curious and interesting fact," says Colquhoun,
"that an acre of potatoes will produce four times the sustenance of an
acre of corn;" and he strongly urges the legislature in consequence to
encourage its cultivation.

Why, if the labourer can be brought to feed on potatoes
instead of bread, it is indisputably true that more can be exacted from
his labour; that is to say, if when he fed on bread he was obliged to
retain for the maintenance of himself and family the labour of Monday
and Tuesday, he will on potatoes, require only the half of Monday; and
the remaining half of Monday and the whole of Tuesday are available
either for the service of the state or the capitalist. And this is an
"interesting fact?" Great God! is it to be endured that a man, offering
a huge volume in proof of the growing prosperity of the country, of its
unbounded wealth and resources, is to offer such an insult to our
better feelings, as to connect it with the distressing facts, "that
butcher's meat has almost become inaccessible to the labouring
classes," and that it is a foolish luxury to leave them bread, because
human nature may exist on potatoes?

Why, if we are to reason thus, and to act on it, I say again,
I know not how much it is possible to exact from the labourer; for I
know not, when he is reduced to "oatmeal, barleymeal, potatoes and
milk," as the doctor would diet him, but that some other "interesting
fact" may prove that he can subsist on thistles and furze and that the
prickles are a mere sauce piquant, for the doctor
hopes to tickle the wretch's palate by the various modes of cooking his
oatmeal; but if the labourer is to live as well as the labourer did two
hundred years ago, if there is to be a standard for his
enjoyment below which he is not to fall, and hours beyond which he is
not to labour, then I am correct in my
opinion that for the last thirty or forty years the exactions have
been at the utmost, nay, beyond it.

Notwithstanding "the growing wealth and prosperity" of this
country, the situation of the labourer has been getting worse and worse
daily and hourly these two hundred years. I have at this moment before
me a translation of the Icon Animorum, of Barclay, published in 1614,
where, contrasting the English with other nations, he says, of the
common mechanics, that they are not "skillful in handicrafts, by reason
of theirease and plenty,
they themselves not only on solemne and festivall dayes, but every
holyday, (who would believe it[8]? ) doe freely
take their recreation and pleasure, if it bee faire weather, in field
adjoining or if it be rainy, are merry in taverns-there is no fault in
the climate to dull their wits, but too much abundance
to make them idle." So my Lord Bacon attributes the success of the
English over the French in their wars, to the greater plenty and ease
of the common people, and to the very same purport is a speech of Sir
Dudley Carleton's in the parliament that met in l626. "Indeed you would
count it a great misery, if you knew the subjects in foreign countries
as well as myself; to see them look, not likeour
nation, with store of flesh on their backs, but like so many
ghosts, and not men; being nothing but skin and bones, with some thin
cover to their nakedness, and wearing only wooden shoes on their feet; so
thatthey cannot eat meat, or wear good clothes,
but they must pay taxes to the king for it. This is a misery
beyond expression, and that which yet we
are free from." Those were the times when patriotism and
that proud love of his country, which once distinguished an Englishman,
were cradled and nurtured. The superiority he claimed was not in the
insolence of blind ignorance, but of a knowing and known wisdom and
happiness. What he demanded, to the honour of his country was conceded
to him even by foreigners themselves. Barclay was a foreigner, and bore
this testimony to the "ease and plenty and too much abundance" enjoyed
by the English labourer, after a long residence among us, and on his
return to his native country.

These are not scattered notices collected with labour and
research, but a few, of many, that have offered in the desultory
reading accompanying this inquiry.

Lord Chancellor Fortescue too bears equal testimony to their
condition one hundred and fifty years preceding; in fact, if we are not
to be frightened at a name, if serf, or vassal, or bondsman, may not
startle us, the labourer of the present day is worse off than he was
fifteen hundred years ago, for any thing I know to the contrary.
Mr. Turner, it is true, the historian of that age, has told us that he
has got a chimney, which a Saxon lord had not; but that it is the progress
of knowledge which we cannot deprive him of. By the laws of
Alfred, "these days were forgiven to all freemen," (by freemen Mr.
Turner understands, if I remember rightly, men serving somewhat in the
nature of our husbandry servants that are hired for the year,) twelve
days at Christmas, Passion week, and
Emberweek, and a few others[9];
and by the laws of Canute, freedom was given to a slave if his master
compelled him to work on aholyday.
Why, if a farmer's labourer now has "a game at cards at Easter, or a
game of nine-pins on holydays, " he is looked on as
incorri­gible and
worthless.

Why then should the labourer have fallen below what he was
when Sir Dudley Carlton and Barclay were living? If this be the
necessary consequence of "increasing wealth and prosperity," the poor
man has only to pray God some limit will be found to it.

Look at your labourer two hundred years ago, and look at him
now; look at him fifty years ago. Had he not a comfortable meal of
bread and meat every day of his life, either in his master's kitchen or
his own home? had he not, within the recollection of people living? and
have the majority now meat more than once a week[10]?
Why then, as all beyond what it is possible
to exist on may by possibility be wrung from him,
if he has been reduced from meat seven days a week, to meat once a
week, there is proof that the cost of meat six days in the week has
been and is wrung from him: and if he had a right to live as the
labourer lived two hundred years ago, insomuch at least as
he lives worse, have your exactions exceeded what were just,
which is as I stated; and I say that the enormous increase of your
poor-rates is further evidence of this. That wretched man Colquhoun
says, it is attributable "to ignorance, deficient education, and the
want of a general diffusion of religious and moral instruction," in
defiance of all that the last thirty years have done, exceeding the
preceding thousand, to educate and diffuse knowledge among the people.
No! it is attributable to human suffering! Want and privation, and
wretchedness, have destroyed the moral energy and spirit of the people.
It is offensive to hear men talk of abolishing the poor-laws as unjust.
The kind-hearted humanity of foregone ages acknowledged the right of
every man in existence to support: the support of the poor and
miserable is the conditional tenure of every estate in the kingdom. The
poor have the same right to support that the clergy have to their
tithes, that is, as good a right as the landholder to his nine-tenths.

The increase of your poor-rates is, I say, attributable to the
extreme exactions of capital. The poor have a legal claim on the
country for subsistence, and are not allowed to earn a subsistence if
they toil fifteen hours a day for it. Does the increase of poor-rates
need further explanation?

Do not let me be misunderstood. I do not mean to urge this
against the humanity of the present generation: no such thing: there is
as much honour and as much humanity among us as ever, and if individual
exertion or individual sacrifices could afford relief, it would not be
wanting an hour. But the occasion of our misery is more general; it
originated in the errors of the legislature, and legislative wisdom
only can correct it.

I believe it will be admitted, when I shall have opened more
fully the nature and consequences of loans and their connexion with a
paper circulation, that the increase of taxation and rents in the last
thirty years, is no valid objection against what I state, that the
exactions from labour have been at the utmost these thirty or forty
years, and much beyond what is just.

The only possible source of revenue is surplus labour, and
every thing that represents surplus labour: money represents surplus
labour, and paper, when legally established, represents money, with all
its good and ill consequences.

All the false capital then that was created during
the last thirty years was an available source of revenue,
and government did avail themselves of it, as the 800,000,000 of debt
is sufficient evidence. Why, if there had been no such thing as a paper
money, could government year after year have negociated a loan of 30,
40, and 50,000,000? Not all the money of all the kingdom at any period
since the creation, could have amounted to that sum; and could trade
have existed, not to say monstrously increased, if all the currency
were for one month, or for one week only, withdrawn from circulation,
when people but have gone back to barbarism and barter? But the nature
of these loans will offer proof how it is that the distress which
originated in the excessive expenditure of the war was not felt, or not
equally felt, until a great part of the expenditure had been reduced.

A LOAN IS A VOLUNTARY TAX PAID BY THE CAPITALIST ONLY. Perhaps
from

this brief definition the reader can foresee the whole
argument, and explain at once, why our distress was not so severely
felt till the close of the war, and is now felt so bitterly; but as I
have not hitherto been satisfied without proof, he will excuse my
offering it for those not quite so quick of apprehension. A loan, I
say, is a tax paid by the capitalist, to which your property-tax was
but the small change. It signifies not that he is tempted to this by
self-interest and not by patriotism: it is precisely the same to the
country in its immediate consequences.

Suppose the capitalists to draw from labour as interest of
capital, or in other words, suppose the income of the whole of the
capitalists to be 300,000,000l. Suppose the
expenditure of government to be 75,000,000l.
25,000,000 of which is above its receipts, and that it borrows this
25,000,000l. by way of loan from the capitalist;
it can borrow of no other. Let government be considered a great
capitalist, which it is in operation, and this excess of its
expenditure is nothing to the people, for the
exactions of the whole of the capitalists,
government being one, are exactly the same: still only 350,000,000. But
in the following year the taxation to be raised, never mind wherefore,
is 1,200,000l. more than in the preceding year;
this is felt by the people: but to what extent is it felt? the
expenditure of this very loan of 25,000,000l.
tends to relieve the pressure: there are the increased profits of
contractors, powder manufacturers, ship-builders, and every other
person mediately or immediately benefiting by the expenditure of the
25,000,000l.; and if 25,000,000l.
be borrowed in the following year, when the 1,200,000l.
is to be raised in taxation, it, is very possible the tax will be
barely felt at all.

One reason, therefore, why the distress is daily and hourly
increasing is, that during the war, the exaction from the
labourer was little morethan at the present
moment, whereas the disbursements of governmentamong
them were 40 or 50, 000, 000l. greater[11].

Another reason why the exactions from the people were not so
severely felt during the war, and again, that the increased rent and
taxation was no proof that the exactions from labour were not at the
utmost; and another reason for the facility of raising loans, and
consequently false capital, was the decreased value of money: for
not­withstanding all counteracting circumstances and
legislative
provisions, an excessive issue of paper was possible; and could not but
have its natural consequences in decreasing its value, particularly
when much of the produce of the surplus labour of this country was
expended abroad.

During many of the last years of the war, the bank-note, in
which the revenue of the capitalists and the taxation of the country
were raised, did not pass current for more than thirteen or fourteen
shillings: more than one-fourth, therefore, of
all rents, taxes, &c. were merely nominal. From the diminished
circulation of paper, the currency of the country has risen to its
nominal value. Without therefore any legislative or other circumstance,
the real taxation of the country, and the rents and revenues of all
capitalists, would have been by this one circumstance only,
had no other circumstance counteracted it, increased one-fourth; and
con­sequently, as all income is derived from labour, the
exactions from
the labourer would have been silently increased one-fourth.

It is difficult, for reasons before given, to say how far the
exactions of the capitalist may extend; but it is possible to give a
rude guess how far they do extend. To do so I must reason from a plain
levelling principle, but honest men will not misunderstand such a
reference to a principle, and the situation of the country and the
blind ignorance as to a remedy will excuse it. Colquhoun in his
Estimate has given a table showing the presumed income of all the
classes of the kingdom. I have no faith in that work. It is the
reasoning that has prevailed for the last twenty-five years collected
and embodied, and carried to its most ridiculous extent:
notwithstanding this, there are some curious facts, and as he had every
facility afforded him of references to official documents, the data are
sometimes correct. How far in the present instance, I leave others to
determine.

In the calculation I have made, I have been compelled to bring
down the high dignity of property and authority to its natural
consequence. The real labour of every man is, I say, of equal value, or
rather, is equally paid for, the few exceptions of great talents,
&c. not being worth distinguishing. Society neither presumes
nor pays for extraordinary ability: all the income, then, that a
counsellor, or a judge, or a bishop, or a landholder, or a householder,
receives beyond the pay of a common labourer, is interest of
capital. Some instances seem, and do perhaps in a trifling
degree differ, where talents are brought prominently forward, but not
enough to affect a general principle. If a clergyman or a lawyer
receive two, or three, or five hundred a year, it is because two or
three or four thousand pounds is presumed to have been expended in his
education. It is the same with all persons, down to the lowest
merchants' clerks and others, who are paid only a trifle more than the
labourer. The real remuneration for the labour of all men is much the
same; and therefore the value of the labour of all ought to be
estimated by the value of the labour of the lowest great
body of labourers; for even the high wages of mechanics and
other artizans, inasmuch as it exceeds this, is interest of capital;
capital expended in their apprenticeship, in indentures, premium, food,
or clothing, or loss of time. Now, Colquhoun, in his treatise on the
wealth, &c. of the British empire, calculates that there are
742,151 heads of families among the agricultural labourers, and that
the wages of each amounts to 45l. per annum, per
head of family. If then, I take from him the number of the heads of
families in other classes, and allow to each the worth of
his labour, 45l. per annum, we shall be
able to separate the worth of their labour, or the
just wages of their labour, from the interest they derive from capital.

I have felt it quite unnecessary to proceed in this painful
inquiry to the more trifling exactions of the other classes, although
the most trifling is not without its influence: this Table is
sufficient for my purpose, and from it we collect that the income of
those classes alone amounted in 1814, I think, to. . .

That the real worth of their labour is . .. 275,938,595

And consequently that they exact as interest of capital no
less a sum than. . . . .40,951,995

or six times as much as their labour is worth, and
234,986,595 are paid for their labour

in addition, or for interest of capital
only, MORE THAN SEVEN TIMES AS
MUCH AS THE WAGES OF THE WHOLE LABOURING POPULATION ENGAGED IN
AGRICULTURE.

Number
of Heads of Families, according to Colquhoun

Ranks, Degrees and Descriptions

Income of Class according to Colquhoun

Value of Labour at 45l. per ann. Per head
of family

Interest of Capital

68,937

The King, Queen, and Royal Family, lineal
and collateral— Temporal Peers, including Peeresses in their
own right,
Bishops, &c.— Baronets, Knights, Esqrs. and Gentlemen
and
Ladies living on incomes, &c.—Persons in Civil
Offices,
&c..

Persons educating youths in Universities
and Chief Schools— Persons engaged in the education of youths
of both
sexes, and generally employing some capital in this pursuit,

7,664,400

1,614,330

6,050,070

275,938,590

40,951,995

234,986,595

Now let no honest man believe that I am for levelling all
classes and distinctions, or reducing the pay of a judge to the pay of
a labourer, or indulge in any other such foolish speculation. I have
only produced this calculation to show by a rough draught, the probable
amount of the total exactions of the capitalists, and the extravagance
of the amount, is, I think, proof of the excess, without any exact
standard of reference or comparison.

Here, my Lord, as my argument is drawing to a close, I again
personally address you. On reading the whole over with attention, I
regret to find that it is not so consecutive, that the proofs do not
follow the principles laid down so immediately as I could have wished.
The reasoning is too desultory, too loose in its texture. I can only
regret it. If I were to rewrite the whole, it would not be better. I
have only then to suggest what I conceive to be the best means of
correcting the errors of the last thirty years; and if your Lordship
has borne in mind the origin of our difficulties,- the increase of
capital, real or fictitious, without the natural and necessary decrease
in the interest to be paid for its use, and the consequent, and
unnatural, exactions of the capitalists,-it will follow, that any
remedy, to be effectual, ought to reduce the amount of capital, as far
as possible, equally, but to reduce the capital by getting rid of the
fictitious capital altogether, and leaving as far as practicable the
new made capital to accumulate, and consequently to reduce the interest
paid on all capital.

To effect this, the first measure I would propose, is the
abolition of alllaws directly or indirectly
affecting agricultural produce.

I have, my Lord, throughout presumed, that the price of corn
is 80s.--I know it is not so-but, I believe it is universally agreed,
that at a less price it is impossible for the farmer to cultivate the
lands with the present rents and taxation, and it was more than this
for many years. If then rents and taxation are to continue the same,
corn must be brought to this price; this price therefore is the just
price of the times-The only objection to it is, that at 80s. the
manufacturer must be ruined. To this also I agree. Therefore rents and
taxation cannot continue the same, and I only fix on 80s.
because we must have some standard from which to calculate the
reduction.

The consequence of the abolition of all laws affecting
agricultural produce, would be to destroy the false capital that the
owners of lands exacted interest from, capital to an enormous amount,
and to reduce the price of corn by bringing it in competition with the
continental market to 45 or 50s.[12]This was
an advantage to the land-holder he was never entitled to, never
intended to be given to him, arising out of the necessities of the
country, and the desperate resources of the state, that could never
have raised its enormous revenue[13],
but by making the land-holder particepscriminis,
and he should be thankful for the advantage he has had, and not
complain of injustice in losing it. To what extent this would relieve
the country is scarcely credible. Colquhoun estimated the value of the
whole produce of lands in 1812-13, prices at 70s.
6d at £216,817,624; at 80s. the present remunerating
price, it would be much more: corn influences the price of
all agricultural produce; if then I say 50,000,000 it is much
less than the relief would be if prices were reduced to 45
or 50s.[14] But land­holders were
not the
only persons benefited by the unnatural state of the country during the
last thirty years. The loans to government were made in a depreciated
currency, sometimes depreciated 30 and 40 per cent. and the reduction
in the circulating medium having now restored its value, is a real bonus
to the fund-holder of that whole difference. This, like the arbitrary
and accidental increase in the value of lands, is an advantage the
fund-holder is in no way intitled to, arising out of the necessities of
the country, that could not have raised its extravagant and monstrous
revenue, but in a depreciated currency. The fund-holder therefore has
no just right to complain, if he be not allowed permanently to benefit
by the misfortunes of his country, and the wrongs and sufferings of the
people.

Let then a fair estimate be made of the reduction in the
rental of lands by the abolition of all prohibitory or regulating corn
laws, by the reduction in the price of corn, from 80s. a just
remunerating price, to 50s. or what it may be reduced to, by being open
to the competition of the continental market- the permanent reduction
of rental remember, is a reduction of capital-and proportioned to this,
let there he an actual deduction from the whole amount of funded debt.

These are the measures I should propose, and the only measures
I do propose, although many others might accompany it, and certainly
would be both politic and just.[15]
If my suggestion were adopted, my Lord, there would be no difficulty,
no intricate calculation, no prying and searching into personal
property; a single act of the legislature would be conclusive. But
personal property, be it remembered, would not escape; on the contrary,
all the personal property in the country would be reduced in value in
an equal and just proportion ; and there is no other means, in my
humble judgment, of really touching the personal property of the
kingdom; for as to the taking a tythe or a twentieth, as has been
proposed, the whole produce would be eaten up by assessors, lawyers,
counsellors, and the troops of red coats and black coats, that must
accompany the collector; but by the abolition of the corn laws, by the
reduction of the price of food, we reduce the price of every thing that
is the produce of human industry; for the price of labour is a part of
the price. It would not indeed be reduced in a proportionate degree;
that is to say a coat that is now worth 80s. would not then sell for 55s.
though corn should have been reduced in that proportion, because other
things affect the price of the coat besides labour, and labour itself
neither would nor ought to be reduced in that
proportion, the whole argument having been to shew, that the labourer
is not now paid enough; but the coat would be reduced in proportion to
the reduced price of the material and of labour, if any reduction took
place in the price of labour. It would, too, proportionably affect the
capital vested in houses; houses being but a more permanent manufacture
than the coat or other produce of labour more usually understood by
manufactures.

Upon a more mature and patient inquiry, however, it is
possible some property might be found that would not be affected; some
specific provision might be made for this. But as many private
contracts, mortgages, annuities, &c. rents paid under leases,
all commutation payments, &c. where the contracts were entered
into during the depreciation of money, have been influenced by the same
circumstances, it would be singularly unjust to exclude them from the
proposed relief: private debts, therefore, should be reduced in the
same manner and proportion that the public debt is reduced, with every
possible regulating circumstance in both cases to obviate all
injustice; for instance, contracts entered into before the year 179_, wherethe creditor, mortgagee, &c. is
the same person, or his heir at law, asbefore
the year 179_, to be exempt from its operation. The pay too,
of all placemen, pensioners, &c. of the army and navy,
&c. and of all salaries, &c. raised within the last __
years to be reduced.

It seems to me that these measures would affect all persons
and circumstances, that are or have been benefited either by the
natural rise in the price of money, or the unnatural rise in the price
of agricultural produce. Persons in trade, contractors, &c.
were no doubt equally benefited, but I know of no investment they can
have made of their capital and profits where these measures would not
reach it.

These are the only propositions I intend to offer, because
they are corrective of the wrongs I have almost exclusively confined
myself to; I say, again, however, other financial measures ought to
accompany them, and it is one of the great advantages of the measures I
propose, that their adoptionwould
leave the country at liberty to pursue such a wise and politic systemof financial legislation as would leave trade and commerce
unrestricted. Commerce might then
indeed be of advantage; not in the way usually supposed, but in the
only way it can, by leaving every country at liberty to invest its
labour in those things where nature or accident gives unusual facility,
or abundance to its produce; thus, instead or expending ten men's
labour to produce as many loads of corn on the barren ridge of
Dartmoor, or a hundred men's labour to produce it on the dome of St.
Paul's, or the stone stairs of the House of Commons, which is only a
trifle more extravagant and ridiculous; we may invest the ten men's
labour in hats, or coats, or cotton stockings, and have ten men
labouring for us in Poland, or on the shores of the Black Sea, and
producing a hundred loads of corn in return for their labour.

Other measures, I repeat, my lord, might and must
accompany these, not with a retrospective action,
not to correct the evils that have been, but prospectively
to prevent their recurrence. Here, however, I shake hands
with the reader, and part, I trust, good friends with your lordship. I
cannot but fear, that in this inquiry, conducted with the utmost
temper, I may already have given offence to many persons whose opinions
only I meant to differ from;-not, I feel assured, to your Lordship. I
admit "'tis folly, for one poor word or two, still, to nose the
offence;" but, my lord, I honestly admit I have not nerve enough to
venture on the question of our prospective policy, and therefore
subscribe myself at once

Your lordship's

Most obedient and very humble servant.

THE END.

LONDON:
PRINTED BY THOMAS DAVISON, WHITEFRIARS.

Footnotes

[1]Even in these Utopian speculations
the great land-holder should possibly be excepted; a rent, equal
to the expense on importation, being always secure to him.
No increase of capital could entirely destroy the rent of lands,
because but a small part of the rental is payment for the use of
capital, but for the use of the land, which no capital can
increase;--it is a payment because the land-holder has a monopoly, a
payment for nothing.

[2]Government acts as a great
land-holder. See the distinction in note, p. 5.

[3]As I do not wish the reader to start
objections, merely because he anticipates my argument, I will here
observe that I consider bank paper and private bills, such as we have
known them, to be neither money, nor the representatives of money, nor
of surplus labour reserved, and I hope to prove this hereafter.

[4]Mr. Ricardo says (Princip. of Polit.
Economy p. 188) "a fall in the value of money, in consequence of an
influx of the precious metals from the mines, or from the abuse of the
privilege of banking is another cause for the rise of the price of
food, but it will make no alteration in the
quantity produced. It leaves undisturbed too the number of labourers,
as well as the demand for them; for there will be neither an increase
nor a diminution of capital. The quantity of necessaries to be allotted
to the labourer, depends on the comparative demand and supply of
necessaries, with the comparative demand and supply of labour; money
being only the medium in which the quantity is expressed: and as
neither of these is altered, the real reward of the labourer will not
alter." It appears to me these consequences are only true when the
influx is completed, and that Mr. Ricardo has omitted altogether itsoperation in progress. To confine myself to the
"abuse of the privilege of banking," suppose the bank of England to
lend on mortgage or discount to A. B. £1,000,000
of its inconvertible paper money; this money will, when paid
away and in circulation over the whole country, have the
effect he states : -there will be no addition to the capital, meaning,
I suppose, that the whole will be proportionably decreased in value
;-but there is the time of the first issue by A.
B.-there is then an alteration in the demand for
labour because the demand for labour exists, and
the labourer is employed before the issue, before
the depreciation, and therefore it is in effect, on
the first issue, additional capital, although when once in
circulation the capital is gone in the decreased value of the whole. If
l am correct in this, his whole argument is at an end.

[5]I presume throughout the present
price of wheat to be 80s. We know it is not, but it has been much more,
and the fact is notorious, that nothing less will remunerate the
farmer, if rents and taxation are not reduced. The real price of wheat
could in no way affect the argument, and I have fixed on a present
remunerating price, for reasons that will appear in the measure I shall
venture hereafter to propose in relief of the country.

[6]Mr. Ricardo has a chapter on the
Effects on Accumulation on Profits and Interest. His argument is this:
No accumulation of capital will lower profits, because nothing lowers
profits but increase of wages, and nothing increases wages but
increased difficulty of providing food and necessaries for the
labourer. Further, there is no limitation to the productive power of
capital, because there is no limitation to men's desires for
conveniences and luxuries; nor is there any limitation to the use of
capital by the limited number of labourers, because "no point is better
established than that the supply of labourers will always ultimately be
in proportion to the means of supporting them," and therefore the
demand would not cease for the productions of capital, nor would wages
rise. According, however, to Mr. Ricardo's own theory, the natural
wages of labour are just sufficient to enable the labourers
of today to continue the race of labourers without increase; when the
labourer is better paid than this, population will increase, but not
till he is better paid (-a most cruel and most ridiculous theory, but
no matter, although it should be Mr. Malthus's in addition, of whom so
much has been said; for if it were correct, what a monstrous increase
would there be among the capitalists, and how perpetually would the
labourers increase, in defiance of natural wages,
if only by the degradation of generations of gentlemen). Well then,
there must be immediately an increase of wages
beyond these natural wages,-for before we come to
"ultimately," there is the way to it,-that the labourers may conform to
the point so "well established," and keep pace with the increase of
capital: so that accumulation of capital would instantly lower profits,
by increasing wages, and there is an answer to the chapter. But "let
copulation thrive," as it will, would not capital thrive too? It takes
time to increase population, and a longer time than to increase
capital; for if, as Mr. Wordsworth says, "the boy is parcel of the man,
" the pound is parcel of the hundred. The pound, as well as the
hundred, like "the gilded fly, goes to't: " it begins to multiply the
hour of its existence, which the boy does not, though born in a forward
generation.

But in further proof of this self-refutation, Mr. Ricardo
admits in other chapters, that proportioned to the increase of
population is the increased difficulty of procuring food, and in
proportion to the increased difficulty of procuring food is the
increased price of food, and in proportion to the increased price of
food are wages increased: then where was the utility of the chapter at
all? Why set out by telling us, that no accumulation of capital will
lower profits, because nothing will lower profits but increased wages,
when it appears that if population does not increase with capital,
wages would increase from the disproportion between capital and labour;
and if population does increase wages would increase from the
difficulty of procuring food. These Essays are blind alleys.

[10]The only two documents of
authority I can immediately refer to are the Reports of the House of
Commons last year On the Frame-work-Knitters' Petition, and On the
State of Disease and Condition of the Poor in Ireland; the one has
relating to a particular trade, but is not, I fear, confined to it; the
other to the state of Ireland generally.

In the one, the evidence were agreed that stockingers could
not earn for 15 hours labour aday,[ "they are scant troubled with any painful
labour," says Fortescue, speaking of our people in the time of
Henry VI.] more than seven shillings a week: six shillings
being the average." "There are many," says W. Jackson, "who
have not had flesh meat perhaps once in two months:the
general warp of living is upon roots and water-gruel." In
Ireland, the distress is still more dreadful. Dr. F. Parker, inspecting
physician for Munster, appointed by government, and reporting to them,
states that "the want of food is so pressing in the neighbourhood of
Tralee, that seed potatoes were taken up from the ground and used for
the support of life; nettles and other esculent wild vegetables eagerly
sought after to satisfy the cravings of hunger." In the county of
Limerick, he says, "I was assured that patients had been received into
the hospitals, who had endeavoured to support life for some days
together with the leaves of the wild turnip and other plants of this
tribe." Dr. Crampton, inspecting physician for Connaught, reports from
Galway, that the "poor were in a state of despondency for want of
employment; they were unable to purchase food or clothing for their
families. The small quantity of sustenance they could procure was of
bad quality; wet potatoes and bad oatmeal were the produce of the
harvests of 1816 and 1817. Whole families were obliged to lie with
scarce any covering; they had no fire to cook their scanty fare. After
being exposed to the cold rains of these inclement seasons, they
searched the fields for esculent roots, and the Prasha weed, in many
instances, served them for a meal." In the county of Clare, he reports
"they had suffered as they had in the county of Galway." Of the county
of Down, Dr. Clarke reports much to the same purport: fuel was so
scarce, he says, that "in many instances, they were obliged to eat
their provisions raw, and for weeks together during the winter months,
their clothes were hardly ever dry; " and the report of Dr. Cheyne, the
inspecting physician for Leinster, is confirmatory of all this; "When
the epidemic began, the poor in many places were living upon weeds. In
the neighbourhood of Kilkenny they were feeding on hips, on nettle-tops
and other weeds. Near Stradbally, many families had fed on the tops of
wild turnips, and at Castledermot, this weed (called Prasha Bwee) and a
little malty flour, formed the chief articles of nourishment."

[12]"It is obvious, that whilst the
difference is so great between the continental and the British price of
corn as at present, the latter being on an average double
the price of the former &c. &c. " Report of
Committee of H. of C. upon the subject of Agricultural Distress, 8
July, 1820. To this half price must be added freight, &c.
&c. but the data is assumed without calculation.

[13]It could not have raised its
revenue by direct taxation-it could not have raised its revenue by a
capitation tax, that should have taken directly from the labourer what
he now pays indirectly -it would have been gross, open, shameless and
consequently impossible.

[14]See too a letter, lately
published, addressed to the Right Hon. Robert Peel, by a Briton. The
calculations in that pamphlet are somewhat excessive, I think, but that
only affects the question in degree. What did my Lord Stanhope mean
when he talked of the "malignant attempt" of this writer? These are not
times to stigmatize and calumniate every man that differs from us in
opinion; and though his lordships proposal to put down the use of
machinery is strangely provocative, I shall do, as I have hitherto
done, abstain from all commentary that can by possibility be personally
offensive-even to a Luddite.

One word, however, on his lordship's proposition. Suppose by
some special visitation of providence, all the fine corn lands of
Norfolk and Essex, were instantaneously made barren, would this be a
subject of congratulation? should we have a public rejoicing? should we
have a national thanksgiving? It would assuredly find employment enough
for the labourer. Five, nor ten, nor ten thousand men, could not raise
the same produce on the "broad bare back" of Dartmoor, that fifty do
now, in the fat prolific soil of Norfolk and Essex: yet to this end his
lordship would legislate! I will not defy his lordship alone, but the
congregated wisdom of the whole peerage, to distinguish between these
cases. This is seemingly very monstrous: it is barely credible that a
nobleman should err so grossly; but the error seems more gross than it
is. It is want of sympathy, and not want of knowledge, that has misled
his lordship. He sees, and sees clearly, and justly, that labour and
capital will multiply produce too fast; that the exactions from labour
by the capitalists have a limit, and consequently that their demands
for produce have a limit, but that produce itself has no
limit, no bounds, and consequently that all machinery
tending to multiply produce tends to abridge labour. So far his
lordship is correct; but then I say, multiply machinery to the utmost;
assist the labourer all that is possible; let us seek to abridge his
hours of toil from 12 to 6 hours a day, and then we may boast of the
wealth, the happiness, the prosperity of England; but here his Lordship
dissents. Let us destroy machinery, says his Lordship; let us curse the
fertility of nature, and the inventions of human ingenuity, that
abridge the toils of the labourer. What is the poor man to do? Your
machinery has so multiplied produce, that there is not work enough to
employ your population three days a week, and they must receive aid out
of the poor rates. Why, truly they must, my Lord, if the capitalists
are permitted to continue their exactions: but I have done little if I
have not shewn, that capital left to itself would
leave the labourer a maintenance though he should work but six hours a
day; and if the legislature will countenance and protect these
exactions, they must not complain of the poor-rates. They have thought
to counteract nature, and find it impossible. If I have mistaken his
Lordship's argument, he has nothing but blank absurdity to ground his
motion on.

[15]Not the least beneficial of these
would be, to declare the whole debt a transferable annuity, for a term
of years